Mannethorn’s Key Rated Gold.

Getting recognized is usually a good thing unless, of course, you’re standing in a suspect line-up or pulling off a bank heist.

Luckily for me, neither is the case. In fact, my book’s most recent recognition is an important and promising one.

Indie books face an uphill battle on many fronts. Firstly, there is the stigma. As more books find an audience via self-publishing, a larger amount of junk dilutes the market. Anyone can publish a book, and many do, and they do it without incorporating many of the checks and balances that the industry has developed to ensure at least a baseline of editing and quality control. And with so many choices available, and navigating those choices ever more difficult, ‘good’ is no longer good enough. Readers have become wary.

To counter this, rating services that were once the exclusive domain of publishers are now available to anyone, although often for a hefty fee. Costs of editing a book professionally can total in the thousands whereas the average indie book generates less than one dollar per month in sales. Adding review services, cover design, website and social media presence as well as tapping promotional services and reviewers can rack costs up into the tens of thousands, all for a book that has well over a ninety percent chance of never selling a single copy.

One can quickly see the dilemma. It’s a catch-22 that most authors chose to sidestep to keep costs manageable. The outcome is hundreds of thousands of poorly edited, poorly constructed books. Readers have quickly become aware of this, and are thus reticent to pick up an unknown – especially unknown indie – authors.

Keep in mind that there are as many piles of literary tripe put out by traditional publishers. In fact, although the number is lower, a vast majority of agent-backed, industry-published works last about two weeks on the shelves and then pulled, never to be seen again.

Not so for ebooks.

Going the traditional route makes less and less sense as the industry changes. More bestselling authors are actually dumping their current publishers in favor of going indie. But to successfully do so requires either having a recognized name or getting reviews and designations that indicate to the readers that it’s okay to take a chance on that particular title.

Today, I received such a designation. Autocrit and BooksGoSocial have teamed up to create a quality designation that rates books based on a basket of criteria. Most books fail, but a number receive a rating of either bronze, silver or gold. On the first submission, Mannethorn’s Key received top honors! Not only does this designation inform readers that they can purchase Mannethorn’s Key with confidence, knowing that the book exceeds professional editorial and construction standards, but that it’s readable and enjoyable.

Still, the comprehensive report identified weaknesses, which further assists the author in improving the manuscript. I made a conscious choice to provide a long pre-order period for my book. Why? After all the professional editing, proof-reading and friends and family feedback, a book will still have issues. I currently have a team of beta-readers working on the book, and my manuscript is submitted to other critique services to analyze it further. In the end, I am confident that my readers will immediately recognize these efforts, and leave this world behind for a brief period by reading it. For a well-written book has the ability to carry us away, to provide us a portal to a new realm where one has no need to suspend disbelief. I hope to share this journey with you, traveler. Enjoy the ride!

Happy trails!

Simon Lindley is a former publisher and Luddite of old-world printing, and has been banging out ideas since the days of correction tape and typewriters (hey, it wasn’t that long ago). He lives in the Canadian Rockies with his wife and two dogs, and spends most of his time daydreaming, playing music, chopping wood, hiking in the alpine and hammering on the keyboard, usually with a little too much fervor. He is currently working on Book Two of the Key of Life Trilogy and a new Urban Fantasy Series entitled, Gaia’s Assassin.
You can follow Simon on Twitter: @Simon_Lindley, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSimonLindley